Chapter 18 - GRAND CENTRAL
Dunk was working the ledges on the west side of the big cove behind
Rogue Island. He and Muk called this spot Ringer West, because
the great beach was shaped like a horseshoe, with these granite
outcrops its western arm. The sun was so low the beach was in
shadow under the oldgrowth spruce. The wind had come round southwest
in the late afternoon and was now just a light breeze, ruffling
the waters between the islands. The pink granite ledges over on
Ringer East were radiant in the low angled light, and a swirl
of gulls over that way flickered in the light.
There were lots of big wrinks on these ledges, and Dunk thought
they probably hadn't been picked in a generation, if ever. He
already had a couple-three hundred pounds, mostly table wrinks,
and the tide was just starting to make hard. He was thinking about
the names he a Muk came up with for their wrinkling spots. Out
beyond the mouth of Horseshoe Cove they called the offer islands
"Hell" and "Gone." On the charts they were the Halifax Islands,
so anyone might figure that out. Over where Miss Marianne was
camped on the shell heaps was "Grand Central." Muk said there
was a famous oyster bar at Grand Central Station in New York City,
and the heaps were full of oyster shells. "Middens," he reminded
himself. They called Bunker's Hole "Breed's Hill." You'd have
to remember your American History for that one. He chuckled, remembering
the look on another picker's face at Wild Bill's when he'd told
Muk the pickings were good on Breeds Hill.
As the wind died down, the smell of wrack and mud and brine grew
stronger, and he began to hear the birds calling in the trees
on the island. But THAT was a funny call. "Sput!.. sput!... sput!"
Dunk straightened up and cocked a ear toward the woods. There
it was again. "Sput!" Only it wasn't coming from the trees.
"SPUT!" Dunk laughed outloud. A squid had just squirted itself
out of the water and onto the ledge at his feet. Now the sound
of squid committing harikari was all around him. "SPUT!.. sput!..
sput!" Dunk abandoned wrinkling and scuttled around the rocks
scooping squid into his collecting bucket.
"What a treat," he thought. "I can't wait to show Miss Marianne."
But the school couldn't have been very big, or the impulse was
brief, because Dunk had only retrieved a couple dozen of the tentacled
arrows before they stopped squirting onto the rocks around him.
"Just enough for a good feed," Dunk thought, and went back to
chasing snails.
By the time the tide had run him back to his boat the sun was
well down. The long summer twilight lit the sky and purpled the
horizon beyond Hell, or Halifax. Dunk gathered his cached bags
off the tops of the disappearing ledges, and motored over to the
Indian middens, bone weary, but feeling full of sap.
Miss Marianne had a driftwood fire going down on the rocks in
front of her tent, and the smell of fresh coffee drifting over
the darkening water was delicious. As he motored past Sum's whaler
he noticed the name, EQUAL'S, and got the joke for the first time.
He laughed. Usually boats were named after the owner's wife, or
daughter. He bet Mrs. Dow had had a say in this name, and he chuckled
again. Dunk ran his skiff up to the tidemark, untied the whaler's
haulout line from a tree, and hauled EQUAL'S in. Then he tied
his skiff alongside, took the bucket of squid out, and hauled
both boats into the deeper water.
"What are you chortling about," Marianne asked. He hadn't seen
her coming down the rocks behind him.
"I'm just laughin to be alive on such a night," he answered. The
barest edge of the new moon was sliding down behind Rogue Island,
and the stars were poking out, in an indigo sky.
"What do you have there?" she asked, as he picked up his bucket.
"My friend Muk calls it calimari, but round here it's a mess a
squid," Dunk replied.
"Mmmm.. what do you do with it?"
"Eat it, acourse," he laughed. "Get out your big skillet."
"Yes, SIR!" she replied, in mock subservience. Dunk stopped in
his tracks.
"I'm sorry, Miss Marianne, I wouldn't want to boss you round,"
he said, abashed.
"I was JOKING, Dunk," Marianne said, scolding. Then she held one
of his arms with both hands, "And you can call me Mary. Come on
help me over these rocks."
"He's so sensitive," Marianne thought, "and feel that muscle!"
Marianne's touch sent an electric thrill up Dunk's arm. He'd never
had anything like that happen before, and his tongue went dead
in his mouth. He stammered, then clamped his mouth shut. "I will
not act the fool," he promised himself. "This is the finest lady
I've ever met, and I'm not going to be Dunk the Dumdum."
He helped her clamber up above the high tide mark, and she rummaged
in her gear for a big cast iron frypan. She already had a loaf
of homebaked bread set out next to a jar of pickled herring, two
cookpots were bubbling on the grill, and a percolator of coffee
was set to one side.
"Some of Lizzie's parsnips," she explained, "and some greens I
picked."
"Looks like a feast," Dunk proclaimed. "Have any vinegar.. and
some oil?" He set the bread to one side and began chopping up
squid on the breadboard with his sheath knife. Marianne dug out
a bottle of cider vinegar and a tin of olive oil from the milk
crate which served as her cupboard. Dunk tossed the chopped tentacles
and discs of body muscle into the pan as he chopped, adding oil
and vinegar.
"Where'd you learn to cook?" Marianne asked, then wondered if
she would spook him again.
"My mom's kinda confused these days, and I've had to help feed
Annie. And I like mixing ingredients.. it's like.. like chemistry,"
Dunk answered, trying to find the right tone. His head was spinning,
with this beautiful woman so close. She'd been standing with her
legs almost touching his back, but now she sat down beside him
and stretched them out toward the fire. She stared into the flames
as he set the skillet on the grill, and stirred i the squid with
his knifepoint.
"Do you mind my asking personal questions, Dunk?" she asked gently.
"Oh no, mam." He said.
"Don't you dare MAM me, Dunk," she laughed, and it made his hair
stand up.
"Is he just a boy?" she wondered to herself. "He's so big and
competent, and thoughtful and sensitive.. and so observant. He's
not anything like the men I've been with."
Marianne had grown up in an intellectual environment, on the Andover
campus, like her cousin Liz. The boys there were much too self-absorbed
to really pay any attention to who she was. They had one thing
on their mind when it came to girls, and the rest of the time
it was dog eat dog. And she hadn't gotten a lot of emotional guidance
from her mother. Her father was a pedantic misogynist, who didn't
think women had any brains, if souls, and her mother had found
it easier to acquiesce and play the dumb hausfrau. Mother found
her outlet in local theater productions, and was always having
a fling with her current leading man. Marianne was left to find
her own way, intellectually and emotionally. She had discovered
a fierce joy in the life of the mind, and her instructors at Abbot
Academy had encouraged her.
Maybe she thought that proving herself a successful scholar, or
research scientist, would finally make her father SEE who she
was, and respect her. But when she graduated Summa at Cornell,
he merely asked what happed to the Phi Bait Key? And the answer
to that had been even more painful. Dr. Samuel Skofield, visiting
professor of Archeology, is what had happened. Marianne now saw,
all too clearly, how she had been another trophy undergrad for
the brag sheet of Dr. Skofield, but at the time he was the first
man who had ever really treated her like an intellectual equal,
and she had fallen ass over teakettle.
The squid were simmering nicely now, and the smell brought Marianne
back to present tense. "I'm sorry, Dunk," she said. "Would you
like some coffee?"
"Mmm-hmm," he nodded, tasting a bit of squid. She poured him a
cup.
This was so different. A simple working man.. no.. that wasn't
right.. "Dunk isn't simple at all," she thought.
"So why do they call you Dunk?" she asked.
"Oh.. I got all my growth in 6th grade. I could slamdunk the ball
before I was in high school," he answered.
"Basketball a big sport here?" she asked. Dunk laughed.. and laughed.
"Yeh," he finally got enough wind to say. "It's about the biggest
thing ever happened to some folks." He paused. "Kinda too bad,
I guess," he went on. "I mean, imagine that winning the state
tourney is the big event of your life?"
"You've won the state championship?" she was impressed, despite
herself.
"Smithport-Carver takes the Class D every year, or you never hear
the end of it," he said quietly, staring into the fire. "It's
about all I'm supposed to be good for."
"What would you like to be good for, Dunk?" Marianne asked gently.
He was all hunched over the skillet. Now his muscles sagged and
he leaned back, he looked up at the stars.
"Oh.. I dunno." He took a breath. "I'd like to learn a lot more.
About the science of all this," he waved his hand at the darkness.
"Read books. Be able to talk with people like you," the anguish
in his voice was palpable.
Marianne's heart ached. "Oh me too," she thought.
"You can do all that," she said, but he just stared down into
the fire.
"In fact," she went on, "I've been wondering about something all
day, and maybe you can help." Marianne folded her legs under and
came to a kneeling position. She reached into her breast pocket,
and took out a handful of shells which she offered to Dunk.
"I've been finding these in the top levels of the site," she explained.
The shells were flattened spirals, between the size of a dime
and a quarter. "I don't know of any marine snail like that, do
you?" she asked.
Dunk examined them carefully, leaning over close to the fire to
see them better. "Were they above or below the periwinkles?" he
asked. She thought for a minute.
"I can't be certain," she responded. "The winkles were only at
the very top, of course."
It's generally accepted that periwinkles are an introduced species
which came over on the hulls of English vessels. Appearing first
in Halifax harbor, then spreading to their current North American
range, the winkles would, naturally, not be found at any depth
in the archaic middens. The shell heaps were in the range of storm
surges, and big seas could have carried the winkle shells into
the top horizons. Marianne and Dunk had discussed this the last
time he'd stopped by.
"You think the periwinkles might have displaced these gastropods
and taken their niche?" Marianne asked. Dunk sounded the words
in his head, savoring them.
"It's possible, isn't it," he went on. Dunk was listening to his
words, amazed that he wasn't saying ain't, maybe all things are
possible!
"Or they could have been here before the climac.. before it cooled
off," he continued.
"The millennial climacteric," Marianne agreed. She had explained
to him how the North Atlantic had cooled off radically after the
year 1000AD, ending the Viking settlements on Greenland, and probably
explaining why there were oyster shells in these middens, when
no oysters now lived east of the Damariscotta.
"You think they might be a warmer water species which went extinct?"
she went on. They had turned and were now face to face, her hands
cupped around his, holding the shells, intellectual excitement
shining in their eyes. A pot started to boil over.
"Sheesh," he said. "Suppa's ready." They rescued the parsnips,
dished out the food, and sat back, resting against driftwood logs,
feasting on the wild fare.
"This is absolutely fabulous," Marianne declared. Dunk nodded
affirmatively. The food had calmed him down, and he was feeling
comfortable in his skin, for a change.
"Mind if I smoke?" he asked.
"Not at all, Dunk," she answered, "Could I have one?" Dunk looked
at her questioningly, as he shook one out of his pack toward her.
"Oh I smoke sometimes," she said. "In fact.." she dug into the
other breast pocket, pulling out a badly rolled joint, ".. I have
a little of this. Want some."
"No," Dunk said with a smile. "I'm bout as high as I can get without
goin all foolish, but you go ahead." He lit their cigarettes.
"That's OK," she said, putting the reefer back in her pocket.
"I wouldn't want to do it without you."
"Now why did I say that?" she wondered to herself. It was true,
she knew, but she wondered why it was so important to have the
right feeling with this young man. This man. Skofield and the
college boys she'd been with always wanted to get high.. to go
all foolish.
"Were any of these snail shells broken?" Dunk asked. He was still
thinking about it.
"O my god," Marianne thought. "I'm out here on a remote island
on a glorious summer night with this man and I offer him a smoke
of dope, and he says no thanks, let's talk about science?! I think
I may be in love!"
"Well.." she found her voice. "No. What are you thinking?"
"What were they doing with them.. the Indians.. DID they leave
them on the heap? Some sort of dye? They have to be too small
to eat," Dunk observed.
"Of course," she said, "why would they take such small snails?"
"Maybe they didn't," Dunk suggested. He was way ahead of her,
and she was thrilled to hear him think aloud. "Maybe they were
land snails.. just happened to die on the heap."
"Terrestrial snails!" Marianne said, delighted.
"That's it, terrestial," Dunk replied. That was the word he has
hunting for. "We don't have many around here, but they DO look
like that, the one's I've seen."
"Eureka!" Marianne declared delightedly, and threw her arms around
Dunk, pressing close against him, giving him a kiss on the lips.
Dunk was totally confused. And scared. He wanted to hold Mary
more than anything in the world, but the last thing he wanted
was to spoil this perfect time, to make a fool of himself, to
hurt her. He kept his hands stiff at his sides.
Marianne felt his fear, and blushed, pushing herself back, but
still holding onto his upper arms with her hands, shook out her
long hair behind her.
"Phew," she blew out her breath. "That was the perfect dinner.
More coffee?"
"Gawd," Dunk thought. "I'm hard as a rock, and about ready to
stand on my head."
"Eh.. no.. no thanks, Mary," he said standing up awkwardly. "I
best be headed back."
"You'd go home in the dark?" she asked, getting up too. Dunk chuckled.
"I'm always in the dark, Mary" There, he'd said it again, Mary.
Just the sound of it made his heart jump.
"But don't you have to come back to work the morning tide?"
"Yeh.. somewhere," Dunk admitted.
"You could stay here," she said quietly, trying to see his eyes
in the night. "I mean we could just stay together... as friends,"
she went on hurriedly. Dunk was stunned. Was this vision out of
his fondest dreams really asking him to spend the night with her?
Asking for his friendship? He didn't know what to say.
"Please?" she pleaded.
How could he say no?